Competition drives drop in Pacific remittance fees

A website set up three years ago to compare the costs of Pacific remittance services has found that transfer fees have fallen by up to 60 percent.

Data released by SendMoney Pacific shows that the cost of sending money from New Zealand to Tonga and Samoa has fallen by more than 60 and 40 percent respectively.

Both Vodafone and Digicel have launched mobile-based remittance servcies within the past year.

The website's manager, Jonathan Capal, says banks are responding to the competition by lowering their fees and introducing their own new services.

"In Australia in the past few months, Wespac have brought down their fees to $10 for Pacific customers coming in branch and ANZ late last year brought their fees right down from $30 or thereabouts to $8."

Jonathan Capal says transfer fees for Fiji have also dropped but not by as much because there's less competition.

SendMoney Pacific is funded by the governments of New Zealand and Australia.